


Pseudo-Husbands

by ebbj9891



Series: In Quest Of Something [40]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, POV Justin Taylor, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:16:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1688075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebbj9891/pseuds/ebbj9891
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian is pursuing a new client of somewhat conservative persuasions and needs Justin's help to seal the deal. Upon realising that their relationship isn't exactly what the client might be expecting, they plot to make themselves appear more 'presentable'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pseudo-Husbands

"So... what exactly is wrong with the zillion suits you already have?" 

This is the question I've been dying to ask since Brian dragged me to a men's boutique this evening. There are things I would much rather be doing on a Friday night, but I'm stuck suit-shopping with someone who has an undying sartorial obsession. Brian is taking forever and I'm incredibly curious to find out why, especially when his closet is already filled to capacity.

"They won't do," he says dismissively, wrinkling his nose. "Neither will any of yours - you're going to have to get a new one too."

Trying not to whine, I ask, "Why?"

"I'm signing a new client on Monday. We're going to dinner with him and his family tomorrow and we need to look perfect."

"This amount of perfect?" I ask incredulously, showing Brian one of the price tags.

"At least," he replies, handing me a suit off the rack. "That one's for me. Start choosing some to try on."

It's an order, not a request. He has that crazy look he gets when something important is going on at work. I choose a grey suit and drape it over my arm as I ask, "Is this client a big deal?"

"To say the least," Brian says, handing me three more suits to carry. Any more and I'll be buckling under the weight. "This is the kind of new client that could pay for the entire Pittsburgh branch's salaries. This is the kind of new client that could make the curfew you set irrelevant, because with this client's money I wouldn't need to work late quite so often. This is also the kind of new client that is _ever so_  supportive of my sexual preferences and is therefore dying to meet my life partner."

"Wow," I whistle. "This client must be really fucking important, because I honestly didn't think you could say the words 'life' and 'partner' in tandem without gagging."

"Yeah, well... they're also the kind of new client that's conservative but likes to pretend they're not."

"My favourite kind!" I gush sarcastically, inspiring a burst of laughter from Brian. "So we need to clean up our act a bit?"

"Or a lot," he concedes, pulling a face. "I told Alexander that you're my life partner and that we're as good as married, and that we actually would be were it legal. That broke his tender little hetero heart, of course. He insisted we come to dinner with his family at some pretentious fucking society joint. I think he and his wife are looking to adopt a pair of loved-up fags like ourselves into their social circle. I figure we put our rings on, we dress up all nice for them, we get all misty-eyed about our eternal love, and we let them play progressive for an evening. I win the client; they win an enlarged sense of self-importance. Sound okay?"

"It sounds... okay," I frown at him curiously. "Did you get into any specifics with him?"

"What specifics?"

"I mean, there's a bit more to it than just playing token fags and claiming that we're as good as married."

He looks kind of offended by this and demands, "What's your point?"

I shift the pile of suits from one arm to the other. "I'm just trying to figure out if you've thought this through, or if you just up and decided that we're going to go and play pseudo-husbands for a night."

"I've thought it through," Brian retorts defensively. "Of course I've thought it through."

"Really?"

"Yes!"

I smile sweetly at him. "So how long have we been together?"

He opens his mouth, then falters. I burst out laughing. "See? You so haven't thought this through, Bri. They're going to ask questions like that and you don't have an answer!"

"I figured you'd show up with all the answers," he says, then adds snarkily, "And probably a lacy scrapbook full of treasured memories."

"Better a lacy scrapbook than your half-baked plan. You sound like Gus - slap on a couple of rings, some suits, and a pretty label and there you have it. Well, there you _don't_ have it, Brian. This is so not going to work."

He glares at me and adds another suit to the burgeoning pile with an air of satisfaction. "Are you going to stand there bitching all night or are you going to suggest a solution?"

I hum thoughtfully, following him as he wanders to another section of the boutique in search of ties. "Bitching all night does sound like fun... but I suppose it's counter-productive. I guess I could come up with a solution. What have you told them about me so far?"

"They went to one of your shows a few months ago, so they know you're brilliant." He glances at me, smirking. "They've seen a picture of you, so they know you're gorgeous."

I grin and toss a tie at him. He catches it neatly, the bastard. "Don't try to distract me with compliments when we need to be talking strategy."

"Strategise away. I'll be in the dressing room." Brian smiles and waves, then makes a good attempt at a quick getaway.

"Right behind you," I say, catching up to him quickly and looping my arm through his. "Because, a: I have all your precious suits right here, and b: if we're going to be  _life partners,_ we have to be a team. Don't we, _dear?_ "

"I suppose so,  _sugar,"_ he drawls, rolling his eyes.

We snag one of the larger dressing rooms and while Brian starts stripping I divide up our suits, hanging his on the wall and mine on the back of the dressing room door. "So who are we up against?"

"There's Alexander, the client, and his wife Margaret. She's a 'renowned philanthropist', apparently. His words, not mine. Then his son James, who's his partner in the company, is bringing his fiancee Elisa. She's an interior decorator and," Brian gags, "We just  _have_ to hear about what she's done with their manor in the Hamptons."

"My blood feels bluer already." I watch admiringly as he slips into a crisp white shirt and a charcoal jacket. "You look great."

"You look even better," he grins, eyes roaming my almost naked body appreciatively.

"I'm sure you don't want me to show up to dinner like this." I hold up the two suits I'm particularly fond of. "Black or blue?"

Brian reaches out and touches the sleeve of the blue suit, rubbing the silk between his thumb and forefinger. "This one. Try them all, but this one matches your eyes."

My stomach flips, like I'm a teenager all over again. He always gets me like that, when he goes all soft and sweet on me. As he touches his finger to my chin and kisses me, the flips turn into full on cartwheels. I start kissing him back, but then there's a rustling from the dressing room next door and I'm reminded we're not entirely alone. I nudge Brian away gently before he gets any ideas and start dressing. "So it's wall to wall couples and the baby bluebloods are about to get married. If they're anything like I'm thinking, they're going to have a shitload of questions."

Brian shrugs nonchalantly. In an attempt to really drive it home, I say, "Think Daph and Deb and Emmett times... ten. Thousand. At least."

Yep, that does it - Brian blanches. He's almost entirely dressed except for a tie, so I choose one and fix it for him. "They're going to want to know a lot of really coupley stuff."

Brian looks past me at his reflection in the mirror, then reaches for the next suit to try on. "Like what, for example?" 

"Like... how did we meet?" I hold up a grey tie and he grabs it, edging in close to tie it for me. " _I was seventeen and decided to go trawling for cock on Liberty Avenue,_ is so not going to cut it."

He smirks. " _I saw him on a street corner, took him home, taught him what a rim job was, and ravaged him on a school night._ Is that not acceptable?"

I shake my head solemnly. "Not unless you want to give them all a heart attack."

He chuckles and leans in, letting me untie his tie so he can get changed again. "I suppose they don't seem the type to be receptive to such lurid details."

"Probably not. Then they might want to know how long we dated for," we share a look at the word 'dated' - it just sounds so completely and totally foreign and bizarre in relation to the two of us, "And when we went from 'dating' to 'life partners'... and a lot of other stuff in between. We need to come up with a decent story. Emphasis on the word 'decent'."

Brian changes into the black silk suit and gestures to himself. I nod approvingly. He turns around and admires himself in the mirror. As I change into the light grey suit, I suggest, "We might also want to lie about my age."

"Might we?"

"Not by a lot - but don't you think it sounds better if we met when I was nineteen? Or maybe even twenty?"

"You'll have to practice your sums," he teases. "No hesitating while you fudge the numbers, Sunshine. I saw right through you that night."

"I remember," I admit, blushing a little. "See? That's what comes of a half-baked plan. We're both going to be better prepared for this dinner."

He turns and advances on me, backing me up against the door. "So how long have we been together,  _honey?"_

"I honestly don't know,  _sweetheart."_ I touch his silk-clad shoulders, smoothing my hands over the soft black fabric. "What do you think?"

"I think," he laughs, and it almost sounds nervous, "I think I already told Alexander that you named Gus. So maybe he thinks we've been together that long. Or at least he knows that's how long you've been in my life."

"We could go with that," I say, watching him carefully, wondering what he'll think of this idea. "We could say we've been together for eight years, we dated for half of that, and we became 'life partners' right before we moved here. That's not...  _totally_ unlike how it went."

Brian smiles, amused. "Except for my steadfast refusal to engage in anything remotely resembling 'dating' for the first few years. And except for all the other men we fucked, and our decisively non-defined, overtly non-conventional way of life."

"And except for all the break-ups." I roll my eyes. "Not that you ever wanted to call them that since you didn't even want to call what we had a 'relationship'."

"And except for the fact it would be ignoring... certain other developments." Brian leans in closer, all possessive, the way he always gets when there's even the vaguest reference to my stupid fucking interlude with Ethan. Mirroring his sense of possessiveness, I close my hand around his tie and gently reel him in.

"All of that... the break-ups, the non-definedness, the  _certain other developments,"_ I bump my nose against his. "None of that means shit anymore. I'm not trying to pretend it didn't happen, but I sure as hell don't think it's important now. Who cares if we broke up when we ended up together? And we may not have been defined then, but we are now."

Brian grasps my side, his fingers curling around me tightly. I kiss the corner of his mouth and whisper, "And those certain other developments... they were incredibly regrettable and ultimately meaningless. No matter what it might have looked like at the time, I was still yours. I always have been."

I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of cheesiness, but Brian doesn't seem to think so. There's something like relief in his gaze, but I don't have much time to figure it out because he cups my face in both of his hands and kisses me passionately, possessively. I stop caring who's nearby or who might be listening and return the kiss with all I've got.

"So we've been together eight years and recently became 'life partners'," Brian says, wincing. "Fuck, that is such a fucking cliché I want to hurl."

"It'll win over bluebloods, though."

He smiles triumphantly. "That it will, life partner. That it will." _  
_

*

And that's what we go with when the time comes. We show up to dinner wearing our wedding bands, arm-in-arm, dressed in our brand new suits, looking absolutely picturesque. As expected, there are a million questions about our relationship and, because we've plotted carefully and have perfected our plan, we field them flawlessly. Brian presents them with a clean, neat, _decent_  version of events that may as well be wrapped up with a pristine bow - we met in Pittsburgh eight years ago, on the night Gus was born. I named Gus. We dated for a few years then 'solidified and celebrated our commitment' before relocating to New York.

All the lurid details, all the messy parts, all of our stupid fucking mistakes are omitted, erased, abandoned. It feels strange, but it works like a charm on Alexander and his family. They're delighted by our censored love story. I pretend to reminisce happily, although really I'm kind of bored. I like our rough edges. I've grown rather attached to them. But rough edges don't win major accounts, so I gladly join Brian in playing pretend while they continue asking about us. Maybe _they're_ crafting a scrapbook - they certainly have enough to go on now from all of their endless questioning.

Then somehow, in a blink of an eye, Brian masterfully turns the conversation to Gus. We're saved from any further questioning about our relationship and get to spend most of the rest of the evening talking about our family. The client and his perfect family couldn't be more charmed, especially when Brian pulls out his wallet to show them pictures of Gus. There's one of Brian and Gus, when Gus was just a baby, and a few of Linz and Gus through the years. Then there's me and Gus at the zoo, and me and Gus and Mel at Disneyland.

For a moment I wonder if Brian planted the photos to win over Alexander and his perfect family, but the photos are crinkled and the edges are worn. They've been there for a while. I take Brian's hand for just a moment, lacing my fingers through his and running my thumb over the inside of his wrist. He smiles at me, and unlike the tidy tale of true love he's been spinning all night, this is completely genuine. I just about melt. Then the conversation turns to children, to grandchildren, to the schooling system, to this and that and a million other things that have never crossed my mind until tonight. It's like the word 'dating' but on a much larger scale. Fortunately, Brian is incredibly skilled at bullshitting his way through this sort of stuff, so I let him take the reins and resign myself to nodding along.

Once the evening has drawn to a close, we head home together in a private car. I pool into Brian's arms and lie there, lounging across him and the backseat. "That was... about as coupley as it gets. I think I'll need a week to wash the coupleyness off me."

"Really? You don't feel sanitised? Purified? _Gentrified?_ "

"I feel more vanilla and more hetero than when my father used to make me go yachting with his friends." I shudder. "Bleugh! You make a good faux straight guy, though."

"Then it was believable, was it?"

"Scarily so. I'm going to need you to take me straight home and remind me of how absolutely queer you are."

"That can be arranged." Brian slides his hand up my thigh and cups me through my trousers. "You were very charming, Sunshine. You won them over. Although I still think a lacy scrapbook would have tied the whole thing together."

"What would we even put in there?"

"You," he corrects instantly. "You would be the one filling it."

"With what?"

"Treasured memories," he says, with sickening sweetness.

"Treasured memories," I echo, laughing. "Like my first rimjob?"

Brian nods approvingly. "Our first threeway."

"Mmm, first orgy."

"First public fuck."

"Favourite public fucking locations."

"Top ten blowjobs."

" _Please_ \- it would take us at least a year of deliberation to narrow it down to ten."

Brian reconsiders. "Top fifty?"

"Eh..."

"Top two hundred?"

"Now you're talking." I nestle into his arms. "You know, as much as it was fun playing pretend tonight, I'm going to enjoy returning to reality. I like the messy, dirty version of us."

"You're not feeling some sort of spiritual calling to a life of white-picket fences and pseudo-husbandry?"

"Fuck, no!"

"Glad to hear it." Brian twists the wedding band around and around on his finger. "I can't drop the 'life' off 'life partners' soon enough. I was struggling not to retch all night."

"You hid it well." I gaze up at him, watching the passing streetlights flicker across his face in splashes of gold, silver, and red. He's so fucking beautiful. "Partners... that's all we need. It suits us perfectly."

"Partners," he echoes in agreement. I close my eyes as his fingers card through my hair, and enjoy the rest of the ride home in his embrace.

*

The next morning, Alexander calls and confirms the appointment to sign the contracts first thing on Monday. Brian is ecstatic and deeply, deeply smug - and rightfully so. We spend the day celebrating at length, in the most lurid ways possible. 

It's not until evening that I notice it; Brian's on top of me, with his arms pinned on either side of my head, and as he fucks me I turn my head and glimpse a flash of silver. It takes me a moment to realise it's his wedding band, still snugly fit on his ring finger. I took mine off last night and stowed it safely in the box, knowing full well how obsessively Brian takes care of those rings. There's no way he's still wearing his by accident. I look up at him, wondering if he noticed me noticing the ring, but his eyes are closed and he's immersed in the moment. I grab his hips and drag him deeper into me, revelling in the way he moans.

He doesn't take it off when we shower, or when we return to bed. I don't bring it up. When he's sleeping, I take the ring box from the mantle and retrieve mine. I love this ring. I love his. I don't know what it means that he's wearing his, but I wonder what it would mean if I wore mine. I'd like to find out.

I slip it back on and slide back into bed with Brian, fitting my arms around him and pressing my chest to his back. It's the best way to fall asleep, especially when my head is swirling with questions.

When I wake the next morning, it's to the sensation of his index finger stroking back and forth over my ring finger, brushing tenderly over the ring. I kiss his shoulder, letting him know I'm awake, then spread my fingers wide. Brian runs his thumb and forefinger around the circumference of the ring, then up the length of my finger and back again, following that pattern over and over. I lie there, finding myself entranced by the sensation. The questions filling my head fade away. What it means doesn't matter right now; I succumb to the soft caress, content to just let it be.


End file.
